Japan’s Supreme Court Rules Restroom Bans “Unacceptable”
Decision in favor of transgender woman barred from women's restrooms marks the high court's first ruling on LGBTQ workplace protections.
Japan’s Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a transgender woman, finding that barring her from using female-designated restrooms at her workplace was “unacceptable.”
The unanimous ruling marks the first by Japan’s highest court with regard to protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals in the workplace — and which LGBTQ advocates and allies hope will be the first of many pro-LGBTQ decisions.
The case began after a transgender woman in her 50s sued the Economy and Trade Ministry for relegating her to either the men’s restroom or a women’s restroom two floors away to avoid the possibility that she’d run into her co-workers using that facility.
The court ruled that such an arrangement was “extremely inappropriate,” and that the ministry was overly concerned about other employees’ potential reactions while “unjustly neglecting the plaintiff’s inconvenience.”
A Tokyo District Court had previously sided with the employee in a 2019 ruling finding the restrictions were unlawful, but that decision was reversed two years later by the Tokyo High Court. The woman subsequently appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
In Japan, transgender people can only legally change their gender on their family register if they undergo gender confirmation surgery, but the plaintiff in the case was unable to do so for health reasons.
As such, the court’s ruling is significant because it recognized her gender identity despite not having undergone surgical transition-related interventions. Last year, authorities in Osaka attempted to prosecute a transgender woman who had entered and used a women’s restroom despite not having officially transitioned.
The ministry said in a statement that it would examine the ruling closely and “take appropriate measures after consulting with the relevant ministries and agencies.” It also said it would continue to make efforts to respect the diversity of its staff.
The ruling comes after a series of mostly pro-LGBTQ court rulings regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage in the country, with courts finding, in the majority of the cases, that laws blocking same-sex nuptials are unconstitutional.
Japan is currently the only G7 nation where same-sex marriage hasn’t been legalized. Japanese law is vague about the ability of same-sex couples to adopt, and the country also lacks nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, permits conversion therapy, and does not recognize nonbinary genders, reports Reuters.
On June 16, Japan enacted a law declaring that “unjust” discrimination is unacceptable, but doesn’t explicitly provide specific rights for LGBTQ people — in part due to opposition from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a right-wing political party that controls both chambers of the country’s National Diet, or national legislature.
Despite the law being overly vague and not promising any specific rights, it still sparked a backlash from conservatives, who began campaigning for moves to protect women in multi-user, publicly-shared facilities.
The plaintiff, whose name remains anonymous, celebrated the ruling.
“All people should have the right to live their lives in society based on their own sexual identities,” she said in a statement. “The significance of that should not be reduced to the usage of toilets or public baths.”
“Even if awareness is lacking among the public, the administrative branch must promote understanding and prohibit discrimination,” the plaintiff’s lawyer, Toshimasa Yamashita, said in a statement. “The government now must deal with the workplace environment more appropriately to protect the rights of minorities.”
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